This invention relates broadly to toilet flanges, and more specifically to a toilet flange mount which is cast-in, or embedded, in a concrete floor.
In the past, pipes were extended through floors of buildings after concrete floors were poured. In this respect, void-forming devices were used during the "pouring" of the floors to create holes through which pipes were extended. In some cases, holes were bored, or pounded through the floors after they were formed and the pipes were then extended through these holes. Normally, the holes were made to be bigger than the pipes to ensure that one could put pipes easily through them. Thereafter, it was necessary for workmen to fill spaces between the pipes and the holes with concrete, or some other substance, in order to meet fire codes which generally do not allow holes in floors.
In the case of mounting toilet flanges, the pipes were extended up through floor barriers from the story below and terminated at about the upper surfaces of the floor barriers. Pipe flanges were then mounted on top ends of the pipes and toilets were mounted on the flanges. In this respect, standard pipe flanges today are made to fit on either four inch or three inch pipes (these dimensions refer to internal diameters), with some pipe flanges being made to fit on either size, being inserted into a four inch pipe and being mounted on the outside surface of a three inch pipe.
At least one person has suggested mounting a special pipe coupling on a concrete form and pouring concrete around the pipe coupling. Once the concrete has hardened and the form removed, a toilet flange is mounted on the upper end of the coupling. Such an arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,354 to Harbeke. Further, several people have suggested "casting in" toilet flanges with cast-in couplings. Once such cast-in toilet flange is shown in Cornwall (U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,598).
As mentioned above, in the prior art, toilet flanges are made to fit directly on pipes. Some toilet flanges fit on four inch pipe and other toilet flanges fit on three inch pipe. Some toilet flanges are made to be mounted inside four inch pipe but on the outside of three inch pipe. That is, they have tubularly-shaped mounting stubs which have outside diameters of four inches to fit inside four inch pipes and inside diameters of three and one half inches to fit on the outsides of three inch pipes. In those cases where cast-in couplings have been used for toilet flanges, the coupling shave been for coupling the same size pipes or flanges at opposite ends thereof and the toilet flanges were of sizes for mating with the pipes attached to the couplings.
A difficulty involving the use of plastic pipe, and particularly cast-in couplings for plastic pipes, is that the plastic pipes, when there is a fire, will melt, thereby providing openings through building floor barriers for fires to move between floors. It has been suggested in the past to surround such plastic pipes with collars of intumescent material which expand when subjected to heat from fires, thereby closing off pipe strings at the floor barriers and not allowing fires to move between floors. Difficulties in providing and using toilet-flange mounting systems in the past have been that when prior art cast-in couplings for three inch pipe were used, three inch toilet flanges, which had to be mounted on the outsides of three inch pipes so that the openings into the three inch pipes would not be reduced, had to be used. In order to do this, it has been necessary to wrap upper ends of the three inch pipes, prior to casting them in concrete, with a frangible material which could be removed to leave spaces for three inch toilet-flange coupling stubs to be placed about the cast-in pipes. Alternatively, if one did not use such spacers, one would have to chip out around the cast-in pipes to make room for the externally-mounted, three inch, toilet-flange mounting stubs. Both of these procedures are time consuming and therefore expensive. Alternately, when one uses four inch cast-in pipe couplings and pipes, one must use enough intumescent material to close off four inch pipes which is considerably more intumescent material than is required to close off three inch pipes. This drives up the cost of producing such toilet-flange cast-in coupling assemblies. It is an object of this invention to provide a toilet-flange cast-in amount which does not require the use of a spacer or chipping away concrete at an upper end, but which also does not require the use of an undue amount of intumescent material at its lower end.
It is an object of this invention to provide a toilet-flange cast-in mount which is easy to mount to a form.